


Liaisons

by ImpishTubist



Series: Until the Night is Gone [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bondage, Fluff, Frottage, Language, Sexual Content, possible infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-28
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-08 18:39:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishTubist/pseuds/ImpishTubist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Lestrade take a weekend for themselves after the events in Dartmoor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liaisons

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing.
> 
> Title for this fic is taken from Stephen Sondheim’s “Liaisons” ( _A Little Night Music_ ). 
> 
> All thanks and blame go to [](http://canonisrelative.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://canonisrelative.livejournal.com/)**canonisrelative** , who read over an initial draft of this and then encouraged me to finish.
> 
>  
> 
> (Also, it's entirely likely that I’ve taken some liberties with - what I understand to be - the typical libidos of middle-aged men. *begs forgiveness in the name of fic*)

Sherlock disappears immediately after the incident on the moor.

It falls, then, on John and Greg to make sure Henry Knight gets home without incurring further emotional damage, and once they have completed that task, it’s a long, unnerving walk back to the inn. Sherlock ignores all their attempts to text him, and soon they find themselves in the lobby of the darkened building, alone and unsure of what to do now that the case has been solved. John stares blankly at Greg, who looks just as lost as he.

“Er...”  John starts, and then stops, because all he wants to say - and do - isn’t meant for here. It belongs in his bedroom, or Greg’s flat. They’ve never taken it anywhere else.

“Oh, hell,” Greg mutters. He grabs John’s elbow and hauls him around a corner until they are tucked in a shadowy alcove. John lets out a slow breath, and sags in Greg’s grip.  

“Are you all right?” Greg asks, his chocolate eyes wide with worry.

“Fine,” John says briskly, though he really isn’t. The gunfire he expected; the explosion, he did not, and he can feel his limbs quivering with adrenaline. “What about you?”

“I’ll live,” Greg says brusquely, brushing off the concern as he usually does, but then he curls a hand around the back of John’s neck and pulls him close, pressing their foreheads together. John leans into the touch gratefully, ignoring the small part of him that is confused, because Greg’s not usually this affectionate in private, let alone out in public.

Greg pulls away suddenly, as though he had just had the same thought, and instead captures John’s mouth in an insistent kiss. He presses John back against the wall, his hands sliding into John’s jacket and up his sides, warm and solid and _real_. John moans, his lips parting to allow Greg access, and curls his fingers into the short hair at the base of Greg’s neck as their tongues slide against one another. Greg takes John’s lower lip between his teeth and nips gently before drawing away slightly, whispering, “Come away with me,” against John’s bruised lips.

“What?” John gasps. He had grabbed two fistfuls of Greg’s shirt, and is certain that this faint purchase is the only reason he’s still standing.  

“Mycroft Holmes,” Greg says, as though that should be an explanation, and perhaps it is, but John’s brain is still stuck out on the moor, with the beast and the fire. Greg runs his fingers through John’s hair, gives a devastating smile, and continues. “He interrupted me while I was on holiday with my sister and nieces. Wanted me to come out here and check on Sherlock. Said no, of course, but then I got to thinking.”

Greg smirks, then, and John feels himself go weak. He gives a lopsided smile. “What did you do?”

“Struck a deal.” Greg leans in for another kiss that leaves John whimpering. “Told him I’d come out, but on one condition. He had to make up to me the holiday that he so rudely interrupted.”

“I - uh - I don’t follow...”

“My sister and nieces have returned home - they’ve got school and all,” Greg murmurs, and moves his lips to John’s neck. “But... there’s someone else I would _gladly_ spend a weekend with.”

“Oh, God,” John mumbles as Greg moves lower; pushes aside his collar to suck a mark into the skin where shoulder meets neck.

“Come with me,” he murmurs again, and straightens so they’re face-to-face. “Just for the weekend.”

“Where?”

“Haven’t decided,” Greg admits. He lowers his voice until it’s almost a filthy growl. John shivers. “Doesn’t matter. Because I guarantee you’ll not be leaving the room the entire time we’re there. Best not pack much, either. I intend to have you out of those clothes within seconds. And to keep you out of them.”

John doesn’t need time to consider the offer. “What time do we leave?”

Greg grins. “He’s sending a plane at nine. Time enough for you and Sherlock to... do whatever it is you do, yeah?”

“Fuck Sherlock,” John mutters, though he doesn’t mean it, because their breakfasts together are enjoyable, if a bit odd. And at least out here he won’t have to worry about one of Sherlock’s experiments blowing up the kitchen.

John takes Greg by the hips and pulls him in. They kiss for several long moments before Greg pulls back and says, almost hesitant, “I’ve got my own room. Just down the hall from you two. You know, if you’d rather not -”

John cuts him off with a brutal kiss that more than answers his unfinished question.

  


* * *

Greg falls asleep first after, which is unusual but hardly surprising. He’d looked worn already that morning, despite the fact that he had been on holiday prior to being summoned. John finds that sleep isn’t going to come quite so easily for him that night, and so he settles for watching Greg. There are worse things in life, after all. This - gazing upon his sleeping lover, watching as the moonlight plays off his silver hair and evenly-tanned body - hell, this is a _treat,_ and not one he’s able to indulge in often.

This is only the second night they’ve had together since Greg’s failed attempt at reconciliation with his wife. The first, nearly a month before, had involved too many beers and a few clumsy kisses that turned tender and languid as each man slowly started to reacquaint himself with the body he had come to know so well. They’d started sleeping together the previous March, casually at first, but the pool had provided the spark that grew into a flame, and after that scare things escalated with an almost frightening intensity. Their nights together had become frenzied and desperate, as though at any moment Greg feared that John might be snatched from him.

In the end, though, Greg was the one who vanished, back to his estranged wife after a separation that had lasted nearly two years. In all fairness, though, John had let him go. They’d talked about it - agonized over it, really - but John knew he wasn’t going to stand in the way if it looked like Greg could salvage his marriage. But then came Christmas, and Sherlock’s reveal of the wife’s infidelity - which Greg had suspected already - and Greg finally admitting to John, weeks later, that it wasn’t going to work out after all.

“Pick up where we left off, then?” John had ventured cautiously, with Greg falling asleep against his shoulder. Greg had stirred slightly, rousing himself, and given a wordless nod.

  


* * *

The small plane comes at nine, as promised, and swings south as soon as they’re airborne. John tries to ask Greg where they’re headed, but the other man just smiles and shakes his head.

“Sherlock take it all right?” he asks instead. John snorts and rolls his eyes.

“He’s going to be doing nothing but eating and sleeping for the next two days; you know how he gets after a case. He won’t need me ‘til he comes out of his self-induced coma. So if you don’t have me back by Monday, there’ll be hell to pay, and he’s already thought up about a dozen experiments he could run on your corpse.” John winks at him; Greg rolls his eyes. John then settles back in his seat, turning his gaze to the window. “Though I think he’s actually faintly proud of you for exploiting his brother.”

Greg laughs. “Maybe he’ll stop calling me an _imbecile_ , then.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

 

They aren’t in England anymore; of that John is sure. The flight was too long for that, and at one point he looked out his window to see a vast body of water stretched out below them. Where exactly they are on the Continent, though, he can’t tell. The plane lands on a small airstrip in the middle of a field, and a waiting car shuttles them to a cabin set on the very edge of a forest. There isn’t another structure in sight, and once the car leaves, it appears that they are the only two people around for kilometers, or so it feels to John.

“Is that the ocean?” he asks, following Greg up the path to the cabin. The sky is overcast, and a light rain has started to fall. But there’s an underlying salty sting to the air, and John’s also sure he can hear waves rolling in the distance.

“Yeah, it’s just beyond the trees,” Greg says, nodding off to his right. “We can go down there, if y’like.”

“Maybe later,” John says absently, momentarily distracted by the sight of his lover climbing the stairs to the front door, his jeans hugging the tight curve of his arse.

It really has been too long.

They’re barely inside the cabin before Greg starts to make good on his promise, kicking the door shut with his foot as he flicks the buttons on John’s shirt through their holes and pushes it off his shoulders.

“Christ, Lestrade, what are you, seventeen?” John says with a breathless laugh, but in the second before Greg replies, he’s already divested the older man of his shirt and is working on his belt buckle.

“Only around you, Watson,” Greg says in a low voice, smirking, kicking his trousers and pants away while he pushes John’s off his hips. Their cocks slide together, hot and wet, as Greg presses John against the wall. And then he takes them both in hand, stroking and fondling until John is rendered nearly incoherent.

“Y’know, there’s a perfectly nice bed over - _ah_ \- over there,” John mutters in the last few moments before sense leaves him entirely. There’s heat coiling low in his belly and his balls tighten as he approaches the brink. Greg’s hand is moving faster, and he goes over the edge first, John following him quickly.

“I do,” Greg replies when he can find his voice again, biting gently at John’s earlobe, the pink flush of arousal visible on his chest and neck even amid his tan. “And I intend to _have_ you on it. In every way imaginable.”

“Oh, good Christ, I hope you do.” John pulls Greg up for a proper kiss, neither of them minding the mess pooled between their bellies. Greg chuckles, and steers John on shaky legs over to the bed that’s mere steps away from the door.

They begin again.

  


* * *

John’s forgotten this, what Greg looks like when he comes apart; the way his mouth falls open and his spine arches as John’s thrusts hit home, gliding across his prostate. It’s a sight that’s only for John to see, and he relishes it, willing himself not to come before Greg does, because he has to see the bliss that spreads across his lover’s face with his climax; hear his name on Greg’s lips.

_ “John,”  _ Greg, silent up until now, gasps finally, cock pulsing in John’s hand, and John’s rhythm slips as he nears his own release. He gives a final snap of his hips and comes as the muscles of Greg’s arse tighten around him, milking him through his climax. Spent, he pulls out and collapses on his side next to Greg, too drained to even lift a finger towards cleaning up. He’ll regret it soon - they both will, as the mess begins to cool - but right now the sight of Greg, chest heaving, eyes shut, limbs limp and chest flushed - _that_ is much more compelling.

“Fucking _hell_ ,” Greg whispers finally between breaths. “Missed that, Johnny.” He turns his head; captures John’s lips in a sloppy kiss. “Missed _you_.”

John kisses back, and thinks that Monday can go fuck itself. He could live in this moment forever.

 

It’s late afternoon, now.

The rain that began when they first arrived has bloomed into a storm, and the walls of the cabin creak with every gust of wind. It is all the more reason to stay indoors - not that John ever needed any reason other than Greg. 

They’ve each had bordering-on-uncomfortably warm showers to ease the ache in their muscles and have stripped the bed, replacing the bedding with fresh sheets discovered in one of the closets. John finds tea in the small but tidy kitchen, which makes an already glorious day even better, and after downing two cups he returns to bed, where Greg has been reading. His hair is still damp from his shower, and he’s wearing only pants. He has deigned to shave, however, at John’s request, because the sensation of Greg’s stubble scraping across his neck or rasping against the inside of his thigh is more arousing than it has any right to be, and John revels in the feel of it.

Greg drops the book to the floor the moment John straddles his lap and kisses him, but he pulls back before things get heated.

“I want to try something.”

John lifts an eyebrow, but allows Greg to flip him; lay him out flat on the bed with his hands pinned by his head. Greg ducks his head for another kiss, releasing one of John’s hands long enough to reach for one of the two dressing gowns that are hanging on the bedpost. He pulls the belt from it and ties one end to John’s left wrist before looping it around the middle post on the headboard. He ties the other end around John’s right wrist, pulling it tight so that John’s hands are level with his head and his movements are restricted.

And then Greg reaches for the second dressing gown’s belt; holds it for a moment before John’s face, silently asking permission. John swallows hard, rasps, “Yeah,” and Greg blindfolds him.

“All right?” Greg murmurs, low, and then touches his lips to the inside of John’s right wrist. John, who has never before been on this end of things - never been this _vulnerable_ \- can only nod in reply. Arousal spikes in his belly and his mouth goes desert-dry as he tests the bonds, and finds that they hold fast. There is a rustling sound, and then Greg straddles his thighs; begins to take him apart with teeth and fingers and wicked tongue.

John’s never come so hard in his life.

  


* * *

“How old are you?” John asks later. He’s not entirely sure of the time, nor of how long they’ve been in bed. It’s probably early evening now, or even later. The sky’s been grey all day, and so is unable to provide John with even a rough estimate. Rain has been falling in sheets while thunder rumbles in the distance, not so close that the storm is directly upon them but always lurking in the background; always present. In one moment of post-coital haze John had found himself staring out the window, gazing at the roiling clouds while threading fingers through Greg’s hair, and his thoughts wandered to how well the sky matched the myriad shades of grey on his lover’s head.

Greg snorts; turns his head from where it’s resting on John’s stomach to press a kiss to his flesh. This is followed by a second, and then a third, Greg pushing himself up on his elbow so he can trail kisses across John’s stomach. John suppresses both a grin and a groan.

“You can’t distract me that easily,” John says, amused, but then Greg’s hand wanders lower and he proves that _oh yes,_ he can.

 

John mutters, “That was _cruel_ ,” later, but Greg kneels over him, offering a smug smile and a kiss.

“You didn’t seem to be complaining much at the time,” he murmurs against John’s lips, and then pulls back. “Anyway, what does it matter?”

John shrugs, lazily tracing his fingers over Greg’s shoulder, brushing his hand through the sweaty hair at the base of Greg’s neck. “It doesn’t. Just... realised I didn’t know, is all.”

Greg’s expression is unreadable for a moment as he regards John carefully. Then he says, “Forty-nine.”

“ _No_.”

“What?” Greg flops onto his back; rests one hand on his chest and lets the other fall above his head. He lifts an eyebrow at John, as though daring him to complain.

“You’re _not_. No way.”

“I am.”

“So what is that?” John props himself up on his elbows, staring down at Greg. “Fourteen years between us?”

Greg shrugs; shuts his eyes. “Too old for you, Watson?”

John gives a bark of a laugh. “ _Hardly._ I can barely keep up with you!”

The shadow of a smirk crosses Greg’s face, but his eyes remain closed. After a moment, his features even out, and John knows he’ll lose him to sleep soon. He starts to trail a hand across Greg’s chest; Greg catches it in his own and cracks an eye open at him.

“Old man, remember?” he scolds. “Need my rest.”

“Old man, my arse,” John mutters, but they fall asleep all the same, John’s head pillowed on Greg’s shoulder.

  


* * *

When John next opens his eyes, Greg is standing by the window.

His shape is little more than a silhouette in the persistent darkness, partly illuminated by the faint orange light from the solitary lamp outside. He’s wearing only pants, and the lamplight highlights the weary lines etched into his face; his broad chest and taut abdomen; the curve of a tightly-muscled bicep. _He could be thirty-five_ , John muses as his gaze wanders lower, taking in the powerful thighs.

Greg’s lost weight since their first encounter, almost a year ago now. The skin had been softer around his ribs, then, and there had been a gentle curve to his stomach that John had blatantly worshipped. But then came the bombs, and the phantom known only as Moriarty, and the shadows that seemed to get closer every day. They all responded to the game in different ways. Sherlock welcomed it as a distraction; John greeted it with a sort of apprehensive intrigue; Greg worked out his frustrations on late-night runs that have stripped him of any extra weight he might have had. He’s reminiscent now of a tightly-coiled spring, and the sight of his lean body in the dim light has interest sparking low in John’s belly.

But there’s an additional warmth, too, that suddenly blooms deep in his chest. John knows all too well what it is.

_ Oh, hell, Watson, you are done for _ .

The rain sounds louder now, closer, and it takes a moment for John to realise that’s because the window is open. Greg bends his head, and a small orange flame blooms beneath his nose. John watches him light a cigarette, cheeks hollowed as he puffs, and once the flame takes he sets the lighter on the windowsill; arches his neck as he blows the first stream of smoke into the chilly air. John is captivated by the hard lines of Greg’s neck; the gentle bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. His eyes are drawn to the way Greg’s elegant fingers curl around the cigarette as he smokes; to the curve of his arse as he shifts his weight, gazing out at the rain.

John closes his eyes; tells himself that he’ll open them again in a minute, to take in as much of Greg as he can, committing the other man to memory. Instead, he tumbles quickly back towards sleep; when he wakes in the morning, Greg is at his side, snoring softly, and it’s still raining.

  


* * *

The kitchen is fully-stocked, and they breakfast together late Sunday morning, so late that it almost should be called _lunch_. It’s still raining, and John decides he wants to see the ocean. He can count on one hand the number of times he’s been to the sea, and never before in a storm.

The beach is beautiful desolation. It’s less than ten minutes away from the cabin by foot, and they’re soaked through by the time they arrive, but the rain is just this side of warm and deliciously refreshing. The seawater mimics the clouds above, and as they approach midday it’s difficult to tell where the ocean ends and the sky begins. It’s almost overwhelming, John thinks, standing there with the land to his back so that all he can see is a wall of unbroken white, both sea and sky alike, stretching on for kilometers. Waves, as angry as the sky, pound the shore. There’s not another soul in sight; not even another house or cabin.

They are alone.

It is _exhilarating_.

“Fancy a swim?” Greg teases, and John laughs. He reaches for Greg’s hand; pulls him in for a kiss as water streams down their faces.

“Did you know,” Greg murmurs when they break apart, taking John’s hand between both of his own, “that your fingertips have some of the densest nerve endings in the body? Makes them very... sensitive.”

“Doctor... remember?” John says, a little less than steadily, as Greg takes two of his fingers in his mouth, cheeks hollowing as he sucks on them gently. _“Jesus_.”

“Mmm.” Greg hums, and John squirms as the vibrations run through his finger. He pushes his hips up against Greg; Greg grinds gently against him in response and releases John’s hand. “Learned that one from Sherlock.”

“ _Christ_. Let’s leave my flatmate out of this, yeah?” John says, breathless, before reaching for Greg’s hips, pulling him in. “C’mere.”

The rain continues.

  


* * *

John has a hard time tearing his eyes from Greg on a normal day; here, when it is just the two of them, he finds himself staring openly at Greg nearly every chance he gets. The man’s a piece of art, finely sculpted, and John is transfixed. He even catches himself with his mouth hanging open once or twice, though thankfully Greg apparently doesn’t - or, at least, if he does, he has the decency to say nothing.

They’re in bed, Greg on his stomach, head pillowed on his arms and legs splayed. His eyes are closed, though he isn’t sleeping, and there’s the faintest trace of a smile on his lips. The sweat hasn’t fully cooled on his skin from their last round together, though the breeze from the still-open window is making quick work of that. John is next to him and has been gazing at Greg’s still form for some minutes, taking in the usually-khaki skin that has been warmed by the sun to a golden chestnut; the hard lines of his thighs; the curves of his calf muscles. He runs a palm across Greg’s shoulder; feels the muscle flex beneath his touch.

Greg cracks open an eye and peers at him, then offers a lazy smile. John feels his breath hitch.

“Christ, Greg,” he murmurs, “the things you do to me.”

“Good things, I hope,” Greg mutters into his arm, closing his eyes again.

“Always.”

Greg nods; sighs heavily through his nose. “We finally started divorce proceedings.”

“I’m sorry,” John says, though he isn’t surprised. He’d suspected as much last month, and the tan line on Greg’s left ring finger now is a near-dead giveaway.

“Don’t be.” Greg shifts, tucking his head deeper into his arms. His voice sounds muffled, now. “It was over long ago, Johnny. We were just fooling ourselves.”

John doesn’t know what to say to that, and so chooses to say nothing. He hasn’t had a relationship come near close to something permanent since med school, and that had been painful enough when it ended. He can’t imagine losing a spouse, even if it was by mutual agreement. And then there is the tiny doubt in the back of his mind, the one where he wonders if, somehow, he had contributed to this outcome. He had never been ignorant of Greg’s marriage, nor had Greg made a point of hiding it. They’d fallen in bed together all the same, with John using the rationalization that Greg had been separated from his wife for a full year before he came along. 

As if reading his mind, Greg mumbles, as an afterthought, “Better this way.”

“Are you happy?” John asks, because all doubts aside, he realises that that’s the only thing that matters to him. 

Both Greg’s eyes open this time, and he pushes himself up on his forearms so he can gaze down at John.

“Yes.”

John rises to meet him in a searing kiss that is equal parts absolution and affirmation.

 

They sit in silence for a long while after, Greg propped up against the headboard and John leaning against his chest, lazily tracing his fingers through the hair on Greg’s arms. Greg is smoking, and John finds it difficult to protest when the man looks so bloody _gorgeous_ doing it.

“No,” Greg says suddenly, and John blinks.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it.” Greg brushes a hand through John’s sweat-damp hair and says, softly, “The answer is _no_.”

“Why?” John leans forward to look back at his lover. Greg’s face shutters. He brings the cigarette to his lips.

“I’m bad at relationships, John,” he says finally. He finishes the cigarette and stubs it out in the ashtray sitting on the bedside table. “You don’t know what you’d be getting into. You don’t want this.”

“You don’t get to decide what it is I want and don’t want.” John runs a hand down Greg’s chest, brushing through the smattering of salt and pepper hair. Greg stills John’s hand; runs his fingers lightly over the back of it, watching as the hairs on the back of John’s wrist stand on end.

“I’ll forget your birthday,” he says quietly. “I’ll miss dates. I’ll work brutal hours, but I won’t give the job up for anything. I’ll avoid confrontation. Sometimes I’ll ignore your texts and pretend I never got them. I’m _not good_ at this, John.”

“Maybe not,” John concedes. “But whoever said I needed those things? I don’t give a fuck about my own birthday, and in the year we’ve been - whatever this is - I never, before today, asked you about yours. I don’t go on dates; I go on mad dashes about London with my insane flatmate. I’m not a bloody saint, Greg. I don’t expect you to be, either.”

John presses a kiss to the corner of Greg’s mouth. “I don’t need all the trappings of romance. I just need something real. And that’s _you_ , Greg.”

Greg catches John’s hand in his own; brings it to his face and kisses the knuckles. Then he says, gravely, “I also won’t be a substitute for Sherlock Holmes.”

John snorts. “I don’t need a substitute for Sherlock. Believe me, one of him is enough.”

He pushes Greg down and then slides on top of him until they are aligned, chests to hips to thighs, with no space in-between.

“He’s my best friend. But he’s not _you_ , and you are not him. Is it really so much to ask to have both of you in my life?”

Greg swallows, visibly, and then slowly shakes his head.

“Then what is it you’re so afraid of?”

Out of all the answers John anticipates, Greg’s quiet, “You,” is not one of them.

“Sorry?”

“The things you do to _me_ , John,” Greg says in an echo of his earlier declaration. He wraps one brawny hand around John’s. “I’ve lost enough. Mostly due to my own fault, but it hurts all the same. I don’t want one of those to be you, too. And if I don’t have you in the first place...”

He trails off for a moment. John, at a loss, says nothing, but his heart is knocking at the inside of his ribs, painfully aware of what he came so close to having.

“But we have this, whatever that has been. And we have right now,” Greg goes on, and John wonders if he’s just imagining the slight tremor in his voice. “So let’s make the most of it, yeah?”

The lovemaking that follows is painfully gentle, and Greg enters John with aching tenderness, kisses him all the way through his release, and then whispers John’s name with his own.

  


* * *

John wakes in the middle of the night.

The heaviness in his limbs tells him that he has been asleep for hours; it must be very early in the morning, and the rain continues still. He can hear it patter against the roof, and the scent of it washes over him in chilly waves from the open window. If he strains his ears, though, he can also distinguish the waves breaking on the beach amid the rain. The storm has calmed some, then, but not exhausted itself completely. It is this change that has woken him - the lack of sound as the storm fades.

Though awake, he doesn’t open his eyes for some minutes, part of him hoping he’ll be able to reclaim sleep. But he also wants to savor their last few hours here in this gorgeous, desolate isolation, so hard to come by on their damp and bustling island. The plane will return with the morning, and by afternoon London will be upon them.

He’s not sure if he’s ready to return.

John fell asleep on his back, with one hand on the pillow, near his head. His other arm is between them, pressed up against Greg’s chest. Greg is on his side, one arm under John’s pillow, the other outstretched. His left hand rests on John’s stomach, fingers splayed, rising and falling with every breath John takes. Their bare legs are tangled together; the blankets are bunched up at the end of the bed. Greg is naked; John is nearly so, with only his pants on.

When John finally gives in to the fact that sleep is forever lost to him tonight and opens his eyes, it’s to find that Greg is already awake and watching him. John lets his head fall to the side, offering Greg a groggy smile. Greg doesn’t return it, and John feels his own falter. But then Greg’s lips part, as though he’s trying to summon words that won’t come, and though it’s hard to tell in the darkness, John would say that the expression on his face is one of _awe_.

“Bloody hell, John,” he manages to croak finally, fingers flexing against the tight line of John’s stomach, “but you’re _gorgeous_.”

John tilts his head to meet Greg’s ready mouth, and for several minutes they trade tender, sour-breathed kisses.

And then Greg shifts, working his shoulder under John, eventually nudging him onto his side until they are pressed back-to-chest. He kisses the nape of John’s neck; scrapes his teeth lightly along John’s shoulder. John shudders, his flesh erupting under Greg’s teasing touches. Greg chuckles, the feel of it rumbling through John, and runs his hand from John’s stomach to the top of his thigh, sliding his hot palm over the fabric of John’s pants. John groans, and tries to shift so that Greg’s hand will pass over his already-aching cock. Greg laughs again, whispers, “Patience, Johnny,” against John’s skin.

Greg drags his hand back up again; this time, slides it under John’s waistband. He brushes the back of his fingers against John’s cock, and then withdraws. John stifles a groan and pressed back against Greg, moving his hips in a lethargic circle, feeling Greg harden against the small of his back.

Greg props himself up on a forearm and bends for a kiss, hooking the fingers of his left hand into John’s waistband and pushing his pants off his hips. The kiss careens quickly from languid to uncontrolled and greedy. They break apart so that John can shift, lifting his hips so that Greg can push his pants down. He gets it as far as John’s calves, and from there John works it down to his ankles and off, kicking it away before collapsing against Greg and reclaiming his mouth, his kisses sloppy and wet.

They are skin to skin, now, Greg palming a hand over John’s arse and giving a squeeze before moving to John’s cock.

“ _Christ_ ,” John gasps when Greg finally wraps his fingers around him. Greg moves his mouth to John’s shoulder, presses open-mouthed kisses along the heated flesh while John thrusts clumsily into his fist.

Greg shifts and then starts to roll his hips in time with John’s thrusts, rutting shallowly against the cleft of John’s arse. His strokes quicken, and he adds a twist of his wrist that leaves John gasping. He can feel heat coiling low in his belly, and Greg’s increasingly-erratic breathing ghosting across the back of his neck. It doesn't take much more than that, and, with a bitten-off cry, John spends himself over Greg’s hand and his own belly.

Greg releases him, moving hand to rest on John’s left hip as he continues to rock against him. John reaches around, presses a hand to the small of his back and pulls Greg tighter against him.

“Come on,” he moans while Greg pants, thrusting erratically as he approaches the edge. “ _Greg_.”

_ “Fuck.”  _ Greg comes in pulses; sinks his teeth into John’s shoulder; presses his fingers into John’s hip.

They lie there, breathing heavily, for some moments. John recovers his senses first, and while Greg is still heaving against his back, he snags a discarded piece of clothing and cleans off his stomach before passing it back. It isn’t perfect, but it’s the most either of them has the energy for, and when Greg tosses the shirt over his shoulder John leans back against him. Greg folds him into his arms, still chest-to-back, and presses a kiss to John’s hairline.

“You’ll have me, then, I take it?” John ventures, his heart still hammering wildly in the confines of his chest, and not all due to their exertions.

It’s an age before Greg answers. “If you will me.”

John twists around for a breathless kiss.

“Oh, God, yes.”

  


* * *

When they wake for the final time that night, it is with the dawn.

Greg is curled around John, their left hands clasped together and resting against John’s stomach. John is tucked against Greg, back-to-chest, and Greg rests his chin on John’s shoulder, his light breathing skimming across the bare flesh. Every so often he tilts his head, rubs his stubbled chin at the junction where John’s shoulder meets his neck, presses a kiss to the warm skin. John smiles sleepily and shifts, sinking deeper into Greg’s arms.

The storm has faded, and the first beams of watery morning sunlight slip into the room, advancing slowly across the wooden floor with every moment that passes.

In another hour, they will rise and dress. In two, they will turn their mobiles back on and begin to address their missed calls, slipping back into their day-to-day personas as England approaches.

But until then, they have this hour.

And that is everything.

 


End file.
